It was a little over a year ago that my shovel hit this old hunk of metal in the backyard. It does not have mounting holes and so it is not a license plate. It does not have an address that is found in this neighborhood and so it is likely not a house placard. The number 2014 must have meant something, but still today I do not know what the purpose of this sign was or where it came from. At the time I unearthed the sign it did have meaning for me; it told me that I was on the right track and that 2014 would be a marquee year.

This was going to be my year: the year that everything fell into place. I remember the feeling of good will and optimism, as I brushed the dirt from the raised, enameled numbers and propped my little ferrous fortune cookie on the window sill to watch over my endeavors with the knowing satisfaction that by the time 2015 arrived, major milestones would have been put behind me and I would be well on my way to a more complete self. A comfortable self. A satisfied self.

But that is not the way things turned out. Things turned out quite contrary to that in fact.

After a near-meltdown at work, frustration in my side business, frustration with myself, and the loss of the most important relationship of my adult life, the optimism that I once felt for 2014 has been replaced with contempt. A foul, black, smoldering contempt, for what 2014 could have been had the rest of the universe only held up its end of the fucking bargain.

This placard now sits not in encouragement, but in admonishment of those expectations that I once gripped so tightly as to let go of my most precious asset: a true and honest self. A self that acknowledges its abilities and its limitations, and does not expect of itself or of others what is unreasonable. This is the Dark Night of my Soul: the reckoning that there is no other end of the bargain other than the one I am holding up myself. There is no unseen hand burying metal in the dirt for us to find, or dispensing fortune to us based on how deserving we are. Things do not happen for a reason. It does not all work out in the end. Nothing is meant to be.

In the latter part of 2014, I began to feel a profound emptiness. At the conclusion of 2014, I see a root to this emptiness, a root which must be ripped out in 2015 and burned. This root is the denial and renunciation of the self. My self. A self so denied and devalued that it was swept up in whatever current would carry it away. As the current carried me, I felt weightless, then worthless, then hopeless. I thought about suicide. I fantasized about the world without me in it, and how that might balance the cosmic equation after nothing else had been able to do so. And the current kept pushing me further and further from where I belong. I was truly lost. Maybe I still am.

Then I crashed into something. It was heavy, and hard, and the current did not move it, and could not push me over, around, or past it. I was pinned against this thing and I climbed up onto it to look at the course in front of me. It plunged over a precipice to a place that I did not want to go. I never want to go there. I never want to follow that course. I never want to kill myself, spiritually, mentally or physically. I want to love myself. I want to honor myself. I want to believe in myself.

This anchorage where I have come to rest is my Rosetta Stone. Restoration. Absolution. My treasonous compulsions slain on a stake. Though bruised and soaked, and far from home, the truth of what I am and who I genuinely want to become is the only thing inside of me that is solid and whole, and does not burn, and does not burst, and does not break. And this diamond of truth is buried in there somewhere, covered by years of detritus, sediment, fear, pain, and loss. In order for that diamond to reflect its brilliant light into this world I need to unearth it in the same way that I unearthed this rusty metal sign: by digging.

So my resolution in 2015 is simply to dig. In digging I might make a mess. I might get dirty. I might sever things that are in the way. I might uncover rotten, foul, or toxic material that has been buried for too long. I might disappear beneath the surface, but this search is worth it. It is risky, but it is necessary. It is scary, but it is time.

I will mount this sign in a place where it can remind me of what I have sacrificed, what I stand to gain, and what I stand to lose if I do not have the discipline and courage to keep digging. I intend to keep with me whatever is useful and discard whatever is not. There are those among you who may have tools that I do not have. You may have perspective that I do not have. Maybe you have unearthed your diamond. Maybe you are searching too. Maybe we will search together. Maybe we will drift apart. I wish you all truth, honesty and courage in 2015, and that your journeys all bring you closer to where you truly belong.